₦airaland Forum

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texazzpete:
One of the reasons why the country has issues is because of the proliferation of lazy, tax evading sycophants like the op.

See them, trying desperately to remove public confidence in the anti-corruption campaign!

Abeg since when did emefiele start probing corruption? Or Kemi adeosun? Or Fashola sef, that you're arguing brainlessly that the FG is giving corruption 100% focus?

If you can't see that our economic issues are due to the drastic drop in oil price, I suggest you return your WAEC certificate an re-enrol in a secondary school again for better education.

are u trying to say that it is only Nigeria that is hit by the oil price? Saudi Arabia is largely dependent on oil...iran too is dependent on oil....are their economies like Nigeria's own Why should it be only Nigeria that should be suffering like this because of oil price....my dear even Angola is not suffering like this

SamJed:
are u trying to say that it is only Nigeria that is hit by the oil price? Saudi Arabia is largely dependent on oil...iran too is dependent on oil....are their economies like Nigeria's own Why should it be only Nigeria that should be suffering like this because of oil price....my dear even Angola is not suffering like this

Ans do you know how bad their economy is right now and what they are doing to survive?


Too many ignorant people on NL..

naijaboy756:
I am sooooooooooooO happy PMB came on board. Sadly, he has taken over the incompetence and clueless laurel from GEJ. And guess what, he did it in just 8 months. He is a legend

oh oh so you expect PMB to clean up the 6yr old shit the clueless and incompetent otuekean left behind in a year hell no!!.

naijaboy756:
like seriously Are you OK Like seriously.. PMB giving who hope Gerrarrahia mehn.. King of hypocrites.. Nigeria is in a mess for real mehn..

Nigeria is truly in a mess.

1. We run a mono cultural economy. Nigeria is LARGELY dependent on crude oil.
2. Crude oil has fallen below $30 pb. It used to be as high as $120 during Jonathan's govt
3. There is massive corruption in public service. Politicians and civil servants loot our resources with reckless abandon.
4. The fight of corruption in nigeria has always been greeted with synicism and criticism. People wail about selective justice, but if your hands are clean, no one can accuse you of wrongdoing.
5. If you follow world news, you will agree with me that we are going through an imminent global economic depression. So this goes beyond nigeria's politics.
6. When there is an imminent global crises, foreign investors repartriate their funds so as to support their local economy.
7. Monies stolen and stashed away by corrupt nigerian officials cannot be brought back to support our own ailing economy because of fear of the obvious.
8. Antagonists are always eager to blame Govt for inactivity, and still criticise them for any move at all.

SamJed:
are u trying to say that it is only Nigeria that is hit by the oil price? Saudi Arabia is largely dependent on oil...iran too is dependent on oil....are their economies like Nigeria's own Why should it be only Nigeria that should be suffering like this because of oil price....my dear even Angola is not suffering like this

1. Can you compare the per capita income of Saudi to Nigeria?
2. Did they have corrupt officials who had eaten up the nation's resources before global crude crash?
3. Do you know what Saudi did when OPEC tried to stabilize crude price? They disobyed OPEC's agreement and actually went ahead to increase the daily production of of crude.
4. If Saudi and the Gulf countries want to take out smaller and weaker OPEC countries, this is the time.

Luukasz:
oh oh so you expect PMB to clean up the 6yr old shit the clueless and incompetent otuekean left behind in a year hell no!!.

keep blaming the Otuoke man. It is now obvious to all that the blame game is to hide incompetence. I wonder what Nigeria would have been like if OBJ blamed the military, Yaradua blamed OBJ and GEJ blamed Yaradua. Almost a year and all you have done is to blame someone. The health minister is even blaming GEJ for Lassa fever. The best comedians of all times... That means the incoming government in 2019 will fold up the country because PMB's mess in just 8 months is epic and unprecedented in the history of Nigeria.

Rolings:
Another lieing wailer. if workers were receiving their salary as at when due under the previous administration how come 27 states were owing workers as at May 29 2015. I agree with you the nation was crumbling under your hero and Pmb is giving us a ray of hope after all the sleaze of your hero and his cronies . If this is not how to fight corruption the way your hero didn't do anything while so much stealing was going on under him is not the way either. Nigerians prefer this fight against corruption ,only the guilty are afraid.

Federal workers were paid before month ending by d previous administration...... go n check ur records

SamJed:
are u trying to say that it is only Nigeria that is hit by the oil price? Saudi Arabia is largely dependent on oil...iran too is dependent on oil....are their economies like Nigeria's own Why should it be only Nigeria that should be suffering like this because of oil price....my dear even Angola is not suffering like this

1.Saudi Arabia produces five to six times more oil than Nigeria....and has a population of 11 million people....while Nigeria has 170million people (Am sure the guy who was OBJ's minister of interior would be putting the population at 200Million.). As such...the Saudis can save far more money than Nigeria.

2.Saudi Arabia is not in a healthy state economics wise. Yeah...they have $600bn in their Excess crude account....Nigeria has $32bn. But consider that this time last year....Saudi had $724bn.....and over 2015 they spent $124bn mainly to prop up their currency the Riyal.

If oil prices continue to stay low....Saudi Arabia would be in big trouble five years down the road.(Their finance ministry is already looking worried) Right now....Saudi is removing its petrol subsidies and increasing VAT. Hard times indeed.

3.Angola is in serious trobule too. They have devalued their currency massively.(infact the Kwanza is falling faster than our naira) and they are also doing the same thing that our CBN is doing here....As this report from Bloomberg says...

The central bank, known as the BNA, started managing foreign-exchange sales by commercial lenders to businesses in November as a response to the limited supplies of U.S. currency. The policies leave companies at the mercy of the central bank’s view on which sectors need dollars the most, driving many to the black market, Jose Severino, chairman of the Angola Industrial Association, or AIA, which has 2,100 members, said in December.
“The issue with the administrative exchange rate is that some people were benefiting the most from being able to buy dollars at an artificially lower rate,” De Carvalho said. A weaker exchange rate would protect domestic producers against imports without a need for “administrative barriers like tariffs and quotas,” he said.

Sound familiar?. This mirrors what is happening in Nigeria...except that Emefiele has so far been successfully able to avoid devaluing the Naira..though that could change this month.

All oil producers are suffering. Venezuela has just declared a state of emergency in the economy.

So...your assertion is wrong.

And we need to get off our oil reliance.

naijaboy756:
keep blaming the Otuoke man. It is now obvious to all that the blame game is to hide incompetence. I wonder what Nigeria would have been like if OBJ blamed the military, Yaradua blamed OBJ and GEJ blamed Yaradua. Almost a year and all you have done is to blame someone. The health minister is even blaming GEJ for Lassa fever. The best comedians of all times... That means the incoming government in 2019 will fold up the country because PMB's mess in just 8 months is epic and unprecedented in the history of Nigeria.

Specifically...when the Health Minister blamed GEJ for the Lassa crisis...what he meant was that in 2012....a programm to combat future episodes of Lassa fever was developed by policymakers at the Health Ministry...and it was not implemented as at when due because GEJ did not fund the programme in the 2013-15 budgets....leaving the health ministry unprepared. And Buhari could not fund the programme because when he took over....GEJ's 2015 budget was still in effect.

So...it is GEJ's fault.

Nigeria is failing infact you forgot fulani herdmen and middle belt militias i can see civil unrest in the next few months if the economy does not improve if ladies now sleep around just to eat

tuniski:
It is obvious to even the zombies but are in denial. Chanji is a scam.

if u look closely at d sai baba zombies u will discover dat their parents ar benefisheries of so call corruption they ar blaming GEJ n PDP about. as if corruption is a PDP creation. nigerians will soon be shocked at d hypocrisy of APC buari govt. by d time APC is exposed for wat it is, nigerians will beg for d return of PDP to power.

naijaboy756:
why is it have for you to have small sense? Just a little sense will be OK. You need a spell caster... Hope ko.. Ray ni. @ $=n305.

So? $is 305 naira then what? Crude is now 33$/barrel . Remove the hatred in your heart and perhaps you may be able to think like a human being.

As you correctly point out, there's nothing unique to Nigeria about the detrimental effect the crash in oil prices is having on the economy, so criticizing Buhari for that is simply pointless. What I do criticize him for, however, is a total failure to take any meaningful countermeasures to assist the diversification that is so badly needed.

As you note, the Saudis - who are in much better shape than Nigeria - are actually slashing their subsidies, while Buhari is afraid to spend any capital on doing the same. Buhari's first priority right now should be attracting foreign direct investment so that the non-oil parts of the economy can actually start to take off, but everything his administration has done has had the opposite effect: taking six months to appoint ministers, imposing ludicrous fines on MTN, imposing draconian foreign exchange restrictions, showing open contempt for the judiciary in the name of cracking down on corruption, etc.

If Buhari were truly serious about sustainably diminishing corruption, he would be attacking its root causes rather than just engaging in a highly politicized campaign like this one. The single best way to deal with corruption is to abolish opportunities to indulge in it, and that means deregulating as much of the economy as possible, abolishing as many silly licensing and permit requirements as possible, and downsizing the public sector to a much smaller size that can be both better paid (reducing incentives to steal and take bribes) and better monitored for bad behavior. That Buhari is not showing the slightest indication of doing any of these things indicates that (1) over the last 30 years he has never really devoted any serious thought to understanding the underlying causes of corruption, or (2) he understands the root causes, but is really only concerned about settling political scores with enemies. I leave it to others to decide which of the two alternatives is correct.

Kikero112:
1.Saudi Arabia produces five to six times more oil than Nigeria....and has a population of 11 million people....while Nigeria has 170million people (Am sure the guy who was OBJ's minister of interior would be putting the population at 200Million.). As such...the Saudis can save far more money than Nigeria.

2.Saudi Arabia is not in a healthy state economics wise. Yeah...they have $600bn in their Excess crude account....Nigeria has $32bn. But consider that this time last year....Saudi had $724bn.....and over 2015 they spent $124bn mainly to prop up their currency the Riyal.

If oil prices continue to stay low....Saudi Arabia would be in big trouble five years down the road.(Their finance ministry is already looking worried) Right now....Saudi is removing its petrol subsidies and increasing VAT. Hard times indeed.

3.Angola is in serious trobule too. They have devalued their currency massively.(infact the Kwanza is falling faster than our naira) and they are also doing the same thing that our CBN is doing here....As this report from Bloomberg says...



Sound familiar?. This mirrors what is happening in Nigeria...except that Emefiele has so far been successfully able to avoid devaluing the Naira..though that could change this month.

All oil producers are suffering. Venezuela has just declared a state of emergency in the economy.

So...your assertion is wrong.

And we need to get off our oil reliance.

There is a saying that people get the leaders they deserve. When it comes to Nigerians that is 100% correct.

The drop in oil price has been ongoing since late 2014. If you watch news channels like Bloomberg or CNBC it's been clear for months that the price was going to crash further early this year(China slower growth, End of Iran sanctions, Saudi battle against US Shale producers)This is a very important and critical event for Nigeria, yet it was never mentioned during the election. All we were hearing was 'Sai this' and 'Change That', the really important issues never got discussed.

The one place where we could have heard exactly what Buhari's plans for the economy were would have been the Presidential debate, but of course APC refused to attend, and many people hailed their decision. I wonder if those same people are hailing now?

Who are Buhari's economic advisors? During the financial crises of 2008/2009,late Yar'dua (Of blessed memory) put together a team consisting of a few governors, the CBN governor and some others to fashion out a stratergy for dealing with the crises. It was based on their work that Nigeria got through that crises, without any financial crash. How many people did not get paid in 2009? How many people lost their jobs? How many people could not get FX?. Yar'dua did what a President should do, HE TOOK CHARGE OF THE SITUATION. He did not spend all day blaming past govts of Obasanjo and Abacha... instead he showed leadership, brought together the right talents and SORTED OUT THE ISSUE. That is what a leader does.

Many of you hailed and supported a man, who had no plan for the economy, no plan to deal with an oil prices crash...rather in the 8 months he's been in govt he has exacerbated deep running ethnic and religious fault lines, bringing instability into the land, while at the same time he's has brought forward zero strategies to handle the economic mess the nation is in. Blaming GEJ can take you only so far. Buhari is the president now and he must take responsibility. Sorry but that' the deal.

lecturerdabo:
It was reported in the media of a pastor advicing the president to give only 20% of his time to corruption. That to me is even much!

As important as this war is to the nation Nigeria, other sectors of governance is as important!!

The leaders should not put the Nation on pause in the name of fighting "corruption"

]
What else does the man know apart from kworropshon

naijaboy756:
keep blaming the Otuoke man. It is now obvious to all that the blame game is to hide incompetence. I wonder what Nigeria would have been like if OBJ blamed the military, Yaradua blamed OBJ and GEJ blamed Yaradua. Almost a year and all you have done is to blame someone. The health minister is even blaming GEJ for Lassa fever. The best comedians of all times... That means the incoming government in 2019 will fold up the country because PMB's mess in just 8 months is epic and unprecedented in the history of Nigeria.

Nobody is blaming a particular person but what am against is GEJites like you trying to free GEJ of blame. Meanwhile everybody is to be blamed for jeopardizing Nigeria

Luukasz:
Nobody is blaming a particular person but what am against is GEJites like you trying to free GEJ of blame. Meanwhile everybody is to be blamed for jeopardizing Nigeria

Most especially is Buhari for two times of bad presidency

op na u go crumble. i guess u r one of dose who benefited frm massive looting in d last administration. una nearly suck d country dry bt God pass una.

op na u go crumble. i guess u r one of dose who benefited frm massive looting in d last administration. una nearly suck d country dry bt God pass una. awon werey jatijati.

jay44:
op na u go crumble. i guess u r one of dose who benefited frm massive looting in d last administration. una nearly suck d country dry bt God pass una. awon werey jatijati.

we all 'benefited' from the so called looting....money was circulating...market wasn't as dry as it is....salaries were been paid on time....the more u guys keep denying that things are worse of now, the more it becomes bad...

naijaboy756:
don't mind them. What still amazes me is some people coming to Nairaland to support Buhari when even his almajiris are cursing him. Who has heard *sai baba* again?

It is now kai baba

As for the cattle people, they must enjoy their CHANGE

naijaboy756:
keep blaming the Otuoke man. It is now obvious to all that the blame game is to hide incompetence. I wonder what Nigeria would have been like if OBJ blamed the military, Yaradua blamed OBJ and GEJ blamed Yaradua. Almost a year and all you have done is to blame someone. The health minister is even blaming GEJ for Lassa fever. The best comedians of all times... That means the incoming government in 2019 will fold up the country because PMB's mess in just 8 months is epic and unprecedented in the history of Nigeria.

Imagine blaming Jonathan for Lassa Fever

The minister is a member of the so called sophisticated people

SamJed:
we all 'benefited' from the so called looting....money was circulating...market wasn't as dry as it is....salaries were been paid on time....the more u guys keep denying that things are worse of now, the more it becomes bad...

r u high? which salaries r paid on tym? d market was flooded with substandard imported item. items dat cannot even compete with locally manufactuted substitute. i dont knw hw u benefited. perhaps u pertook in a faketitious processes.

omohayek:
As you correctly point out, there's nothing unique to Nigeria about the detrimental effect the crash in oil prices is having on the economy, so criticizing Buhari for that is simply pointless. What I do criticize him for, however, is a total failure to take any meaningful countermeasures to assist the diversification that is so badly needed.

As you note, the Saudis - who are in much better shape than Nigeria - are actually slashing their subsidies, while Buhari is afraid to spend any capital on doing the same. Buhari's first priority right now should be attracting foreign direct investment so that the non-oil parts of the economy can actually start to take off, but everything his administration has done has had the opposite effect: taking six months to appoint ministers, imposing ludicrous fines on MTN, imposing draconian foreign exchange restrictions, showing open contempt for the judiciary in the name of cracking down on corruption, etc.

If Buhari were truly serious about sustainably diminishing corruption, he would be attacking its root causes rather than just engaging in a highly politicized campaign like this one. The single best way to deal with corruption is to abolish opportunities to indulge in it, and that means deregulating as much of the economy as possible, abolishing as many silly licensing and permit requirements as possible, and downsizing the public sector to a much smaller size that can be both better paid (reducing incentives to steal and take bribes) and better monitored for bad behavior. That Buhari is not showing the slightest indication of doing any of these things indicates that (1) over the last 30 years he has never really devoted any serious thought to understanding the underlying causes of corruption, or (2) he understands the root causes, but is really only concerned about settling political scores with enemies. I leave it to others to decide which of the two alternatives is correct.

I agree totally, and remember well during his campaign how he only talked about jailing people which was merely to cut branches and not uproot. He was cheered on for it then.

Jonathan with all his incompetence was at least trying to attack the root.

Buhari is a stubborn man and will carry on in his crusade to punish opponents while his thieving supporters are left untouched. Neither does he have a desire to close the loopholes in the system that give rise to grand scale corrupt practices in the first place.

Nigerians have themselves to blame because they too were more interested in public punishment of the few over a cleaner system where corruption would have been less possible.

I hope Nigerians see their 'change'......from bad to worse.

bjdon:
There is a saying that people get the leaders they deserve. When it comes to Nigerians that is 100% correct.

The drop in oil price has been ongoing since late 2014. If you watch news channels like Bloomberg or CNBC it's been clear for months that the price was going to crash further early this year(China slower growth, End of Iran sanctions, Saudi battle against US Shale producers)This is a very important and critical event for Nigeria, yet it was never mentioned during the election. All we were hearing was 'Sai this' and 'Change That', the really important issues never got discussed.

The one place where we could have heard exactly what Buhari's plans for the economy were would have been the Presidential debate, but of course APC refused to attend, and many people hailed their decision. I wonder if those same people are hailing now?

Who are Buhari's economic advisors? During the financial crises of 2008/2009,late Yar'dua (Of blessed memory) put together a team consisting of a few governors, the CBN governor and some others to fashion out a stratergy for dealing with the crises. It was based on their work that Nigeria got through that crises, without any financial crash. How many people did not get paid in 2009? How many people lost their jobs? How many people could not get FX?. Yar'dua did what a President should do, HE TOOK CHARGE OF THE SITUATION. He did not spend all day blaming past govts of Obasanjo and Abacha... instead he showed leadership, brought together the right talents and SORTED OUT THE ISSUE. That is what a leader does.

Many of you hailed and supported a man, who had no plan for the economy, no plan to deal with an oil prices crash...rather in the 8 months he's been in govt he has exacerbated deep running ethnic and religious fault lines, bringing instability into the land, while at the same time he's has brought forward zero strategies to handle the economic mess the nation is in. Blaming GEJ can take you only so far. Buhari is the president now and he must take responsibility. Sorry but that' the deal.

Bjdon, you are one intelligent poster with a lot of insight. Your post is the truth and this truth many Nigerians would not admit no matter how glaring.

If I could buy you a beer I would.

omohayek:
As you correctly point out, there's nothing unique to Nigeria about the detrimental effect the crash in oil prices is having on the economy, so criticizing Buhari for that is simply pointless. What I do criticize him for, however, is a total failure to take any meaningful countermeasures to assist the diversification that is so badly needed.

As you note, the Saudis - who are in much better shape than Nigeria - are actually slashing their subsidies, while Buhari is afraid to spend any capital on doing the same. Buhari's first priority right now should be attracting foreign direct investment so that the non-oil parts of the economy can actually start to take off, but everything his administration has done has had the opposite effect: taking six months to appoint ministers, imposing ludicrous fines on MTN, imposing draconian foreign exchange restrictions, showing open contempt for the judiciary in the name of cracking down on corruption, etc.

1.MTN is the architect of their own problems. They were fined alongside other GSM companies on terms that had been agreed months earlier...as the quote below from this article puts it:

According to NCC, the refusal of MTN to comply with its directive on SIM card deactivation constitutes a big threat to national security because most dubious Nigerians whose identities were not captured with their SIM cards, use the SIM cards to commit crimes like kidnapping and insurgencies. According to the regulator, some of the people use the SIM cards to defraud people and to ask for huge ransom from the families of the kidnapped, knowing full well that their identities could not be traced to the unregistered SIM cards.


NCC said it communicated the security implications to all telecoms operators and expected them to comply, but was surprised that they all failed to comply, hence the initial fine of N120.4 million in August this year on all four GSM operators. At that MTN was fined N102.2 million, Globacom got N7.4 million fine, Etisalat got N7 million, and Airtel got N3.8 million fine, totaling N120.4 million fine for all them, for violating the NCC's directive to deactivate all pre-registered SIM cards, all improperly registered SIM cards and all SIM cards that failed to undergo complete registration on their networks.

NCC gave them up till September 7, 2015 to pay the fine or risk additional N100, 000 fine per day for each operator, aside from the main fine.


THISDAY gathered that all other operators paid the fine, except for MTN who failed to pay, before it got the present N1.04 trillion fine.

Rule of contract....if you signed it, you understood it...you have to follow it.

2.Draconian forex restrictions are as a result of oil price fall.

As a result of the fall in oil prices....we no longer have the dollars to prop up the naira effectively....AND maintain our high volume of imports as well. CBN is left with two choices.....either allow the status quo to stand....meaning devaluing the naira and watching prices rise excessively....as well as running out of forex to prop up the naira....leading to free fall in the value of the naira.....OR restrict the forex, and hope that alternative sources of forex kick in or (not going to happen) oil prices rise. (Interestingly that is what happened in 2008-9...fortunately for the then CBN governor.....oil prices rose again.)

Either way....the current regime is better. Remove forex restrictions....and you will have a inflation driven disaster in the next six months.

(Another reason why CBN won't devalue the naira is because most of our industries import their raw materials.Remove forex restrictions, devalue the naira....and locally produced goods become as expensive as the foreign goods).

In my opinion....APC should just tell us they are going to run an austerity govt...and also begin the process of diversification. We have no choice.

Corruption must be fought. No argument. It may even attract more foreign investors as they see that petty corruption is not tolerated in Nigerian anymore. Infact.....foreign investors would prefer to do business in a corrupt free society...as your second part points out.

omohayek:
If Buhari were truly serious about sustainably diminishing corruption, he would be attacking its root causes rather than just engaging in a highly politicized campaign like this one. The single best way to deal with corruption is to abolish opportunities to indulge in it, and that means deregulating as much of the economy as possible, abolishing as many silly licensing and permit requirements as possible, and downsizing the public sector to a much smaller size that can be both better paid (reducing incentives to steal and take bribes) and better monitored for bad behavior. That Buhari is not showing the slightest indication of doing any of these things indicates that (1) over the last 30 years he has never really devoted any serious thought to understanding the underlying causes of corruption, or (2) he understands the root causes, but is really only concerned about settling political scores with enemies. I leave it to others to decide which of the two alternatives is correct.

At the bolded....no 3.....downsizing the public sector...that is a good idea....but it means massive job losses.

2.Deregulating the economy....good idea, I even back fuel subsidy removal.....but it means high prices , especially for fuel

The problem is that good economic decisions are not always popular with the public. The reason why there were protests at GEJ's attempt to remove fuel subsidy in 2012 was not because (as some people allege) a cabal wanted it (infact the fuel cabal would benefit far more from a deregulated fuel market than the subsidy regimen...as would independent marketers...as they can set their prices).....but because the average Nigerian does not want to pay too high a price for ''something we produce freely''.And if you try to explain why you need to deregulate....you will only get accusations of being too grammatical

It is a fact that the civil service is bloated. But....downsizing? Tried before at the state level in 2001-2 by the then governor of Osun State...Bisi Akande.When elections came along in 2003....he got voted out. And first thing his successor did....reinstate the sacked workers. . And every Nigerian politician irrespective of political party got the message loud and clear....thou shalt not engage in mass sack of workers....even if it is the right thing to do. PDP never massively downsized workers....and APC won't...because they do not want to lose votes.

I agree...we shoud remove subsides, deregulate, and downsize. Unfortunately....there are too many suffering people in this country...and this is a democracy. Ghana did it in the late 80's....under an army dictatorship.

jay44:
r u high? which salaries r paid on tym? d market was flooded with substandard imported item. items dat cannot even compete with locally manufactuted substitute. i dont knw hw u benefited. perhaps u pertook in a faketitious processes.

check ur records...salaries were paid on time compared to now that people start rejoicing when they are been paid their salaries....for substandard products, only u that knows about that one....even if it was there who told u it has reduced...what policy has been put in place to checkmate it...

bjdon:
Who are Buhari's economic advisors? During the financial crises of 2008/2009,late Yar'dua (Of blessed memory) put together a team consisting of a few governors, the CBN governor and some others to fashion out a stratergy for dealing with the crises. It was based on their work that Nigeria got through that crises, without any financial crash. How many people did not get paid in 2009? How many people lost their jobs? How many people could not get FX?. Yar'dua did what a President should do, HE TOOK CHARGE OF THE SITUATION. He did not spend all day blaming past govts of Obasanjo and Abacha... instead he showed leadership, brought together the right talents and SORTED OUT THE ISSUE. That is what a leader does.

In 2008/9....the situation was different.

Oil prices crashed in 08...and yes...there were problems. But by 2009....they had started to rise again...which was largely how we got out of the mess.

We also had very good foreign currency reserves....($62 billion in 2008...compared to$32bn now).

In your analysis....you did not take that into account.

Right now...oil is falling...and won't be getting up again. And what Buhari is doing sadly (and I am not an APC or PDP fan)...is the best under the circumstances.I doubt any economic team could do better.

As this very good article puts it...

And then the inevitable happened — oil prices started to fall from late 2008 to less than $50 by the end of the year. But this time around, Nigeria was in a pretty good position to weather the storm with reserves totalling around $62 billion. Nevertheless, Soludo engineered some kind of artificial scarcity of forex to allow a devaluation of the naira. He also banned the Interbank market for six months.
All told, when Soludo took office, the naira was trading at 127 naira to $1 and by the time he left in 2009, it was around the 147 naira mark. But this masks the fact that in 2008, it actually went as low as 115 naira to $1 at one point. Oil prices started to recover pretty quickly and so if Soludo had done nothing, it would have just cost Nigeria some of its reserves and normal service would have resumed after about eight months. But the temptation to ‘do something’ is always strong.

In other words....2008 and 2015 are two different years.

1.In 2008....oil dropped to below $50...then jumped back up again by 2009.

Now...oil is dropping...even below the level it was in 2008.And it is not going to come back up. (The optimists say that by 2017 it may rise to $50. Nigeria needs oil to be at $123 per barrel just to balance the books.)

2.We had saved lots of money in 2008. When PDP handed over to APC in 2015...we had saved far less money...with GEJ even wasting a large part of the cash Yaradua saved.(Another thing....Yaradua was a savings president...to such high levels).

Buhari's economic team is doing the best they can....preventing the naira from being devalued via strict forex restrictions (we cannot save because oil is too low)....while blocking leakages, and raising taxes. Of course...subsides would have to go...and costs must be cut(No BMW cars please!)

Kikero112:
At the bolded....no 3.....downsizing the public sector...that is a good idea....but it means massive job losses.

2.Deregulating the economy....good idea, I even back fuel subsidy removal.....but it means high prices , especially for fuel

The problem is that good economic decisions are not always popular with the public. The reason why there were protests at GEJ's attempt to remove fuel subsidy in 2012 was not because (as some people allege) a cabal wanted it (infact the fuel cabal would benefit far more from a deregulated fuel market than the subsidy regimen...as would independent marketers...as they can set their prices).....but because the average Nigerian does not want to pay too high a price for ''something we produce freely''.And if you try to explain why you need to deregulate....you will only get accusations of being too grammatical

It is a fact that the civil service is bloated. But....downsizing? Tried before at the state level in 2001-2 by the then governor of Osun State...Bisi Akande.When elections came along in 2003....he got voted out. And first thing his successor did....reinstate the sacked workers. . And every Nigerian politician irrespective of political party got the message loud and clear....thou shalt not engage in mass sack of workers....even if it is the right thing to do. PDP never massively downsized workers....and APC won't...because they do not want to lose votes.

I agree...we shoud remove subsides, deregulate, and downsize. Unfortunately....there are too many suffering people in this country...and this is a democracy. Ghana did it in the late 80's....under an army dictatorship.

You're right that it will be politically costly for Buhari to do what needs doing, extremely costly even, but I believe that part of what leadership means is getting one's followers to accept that painful choices need to be made, but that the long term payoff will be worth it - the whole "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears" thing. Has Buhari shown any inclination to do so?

There would have been no better time for Buhari to push for painful changes than at the very beginning of his term, when he could still count on the goodwill of the electorate; instead he squandered it dithering over appointments he should have been able to make on day one. Besides, the man is already 73, so why not bite the bullet and do what needs to be done, even if it's at the expense of a one-term presidency? He could then go down in history as the man who paved the way for Nigeria's recovery to greatness. Or is it that Buhari is just like all of the other politicians who prefer to hold on to power as long as possible, even if it means pandering to every misunderstanding of the masses?

My honest opinion is that Buhari is indeed an honest man, at least as far as Nigerian politicians go, and he does seem to genuinely have the interests of the masses at heart, but that he simply doesn't have a good grasp of either economics or the perverse incentives that make Nigeria so rife with corruption. Unfortunately good intentions aren't enough in running the economic affairs of 170 million people.